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Monday, 10 February 2014

Coming to the UK from Image Entertainment on March 10 2014, Bloody Homecoming is a retro-slasher that is a lot of fun for fans of the sub-genre, but it doesn't offer anything new, so may very well put off horror fans who feel once you have seen one slasher, you have seen them all.

A group of freshman attend the homecoming dance, and members of the group inadvertently cause the death of a fellow student by trapping a fellow student in a storeroom that is set alight. Three years later, and a dance is being held again, but there is someone stalking the halls who hasn't been invited, and he intends to make this dance a Bloody homecoming.

While the film doesn't feature an ounce of originality, I have to say I enjoyed it. I am an avid slasher fan, and I don't care how many similarities there are in plots between any number of films, if it is fun, then I will find it hard to pick fault with anything the movie does. As a whodunnit slasher movie, Bloody homecoming gets a lot of things right. Red herrings are tossed at you, and before the killer is revealed at the end, it will still have you guessing as to who is committing the murders.

All of the actors involved are decent enough, and none of them are laughable, which for a direct to dvd film is always something of a plus. The blood and deaths are also worthy of a mention. While there is nothing really creative, again, for a low budget direct to dvd movie, Bloody Homecoming has gallons of the red stuff! Along with the blood, the main chase at the end of the movie (lasting nearly twenty minutes) is pure slasher candy that will have any fan of the sub-genre eating out of its hand!

While it does re-tread many of the old slasher cliches, and doesn't really play fair with who the killer is (it may very well leave you scratching you head), Bloody Homecoming is a fun and bloody slasher movie that, while lumping cliche after cliche upon the viewer, still manages to be a fun and bloody ride.

Coming from new label Image Entertainment on March 24th in the UK, Black Water Vampire is a found footage movie with many similarities to The Blair Witch Project, which is no bad thing considering it was an effective piece of horror cinema (in my opinion at least).

Black Water Vampire isn't your typical vampire movie. Nor does this vampire sparkle, which will certainly be a plus for many horror fans out there who are bored with the glut of romantic good looking undead.

Following a series of bizarre murders that take place every ten years, a group of documentarians visit the small town and the adjoined woods to see if they can uncover the truth behind the strange killings.

The camera work here is much less disorientating than other found footage movies, and that therefore makes the movie much more tolerable. While as mentioned, the movie does follow the plot of a previous found footage movie (complete with tent attacks, a determined female lead and even interviews with creepy townsfolk) the movie does feel overly familiar, but by the end of it's running time, it is an enjoyable piece of cinema.

The similarities between this movie and The Blair Witch Project are apparent from the get-go, but this certainly doesn't work against the movie, as when the monster comes into play, the tension is cranked so high that you will find yourself jumping at its every appearance. Every character comes off as incredibly realistic in the film, and the dialogue never feels forced. It actually feels incredibly natural, which again, is something different for a found footage film.

Where Black Water Vampire comes into its own is with its magnificent, bestial and ferocious creature. The payoff certainly hits home, and where The Blair Witch Project left many horror fans wanting with it's total lack of anything monstrous, Black Water Vampire gives you everything you want with its title character. So if you are looking for a fun monster movie with natural dialogue and believable characters, then you could do a lot worse than Black Water vampire.

Found footage may very well be an over-saturated sub-genre at the moment, but films like Black Water Vampire are enjoyable, and use the found footage gimmick as a great way to build tension. Go check it out if you are a fan of hulking demonic creatures and movies that build tension to boiling point. Black Water Vampire may very well surprise you with just how good it is.